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Thursday, 25 March 2010

Cut Trident, save £97 billion, protect public services

Received the email copied below from Greenpeace today. I agree entirely with them that we should cut out the Trident nuclear weapons replacement and save £97 billion - and help protect essential public services from cuts. Whilst on the topic of military spending we've spent £8-£9 billion on the war in Afghanistan over the last 8yrs or so too - lets bring our troops home, save our soldiers lives and avoid spending a further £8-£9 billion in the next 8yrs too.___________________________________________Hot on the heels of our 'In the Firing Line' investigation, which showed that Trident replacement will cost UK taxpayers a shocking £97 billion, we’re busy campaigning to stop the UK building new nuclear weapons.

In December we projected a 100 foot high message to the Chancellor onto Big Ben – an image of a Trident missile with the caption: 'Darling...Cut the crap'.

But yesterday Alistair Darling missed a golden opportunity in the pre-election budget. He could have cancelled Trident, and used the money to help fund new green jobs, protect frontline services and reduce the nation's debts.

Instead, he preferred to effectively cut public sector pay and services by reducing government departmental spending by £11bn.

With an election in the offing, now is the time to tell politicians that we want our hard-earned taxes spent on things we actually need, not wasted on doomsday machines which many former generals admit have no military value.

For inspiration, visit our video wall to get ideas about how we could better spend this enormous sum of money. For just £2bn, for example, we could reduce class sizes in UK schools down to an average of 20 by 2020. We could spend it on tackling climate change and fuel poverty.On the wall you can post your own views about how this huge amount of cash could be better spent, and you can also watch our Cut Trident animation (complete with soundtrack by Massive Attack) or spread the word by sharing it with your friends.

With President Obama committing to reduce nuclear weapons, and the US and Russia close to agreeing a new arms control treaty, the possibility of a nuclear-free world is no longer pie-in-the-sky. With your help, we want to put the phrase 'Cut Trident' on everyone's lips in the run up to this election, and take a big step towards making it a reality.